


Cooking? Cooking!

by glitteringconstellations



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Shiro tries to cook, he's not very successful at it, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 01:37:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15109094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteringconstellations/pseuds/glitteringconstellations
Summary: Shiro could admit that few things truly scared him.Sure, he wasn’t the biggest fan of snakes or spiders, but they didn’t frighten him. He found thunderstorms pleasant and soothing, and he never had a fear of heights (and what a poor career choicethatwould have been, if he had).But two things, and only two, scared him down to his core. And he’d faced both in the span of mere hours. Which, of course, is how he found himself standing in the kitchen of the Castle at an utter loss of where to proceed from there.





	Cooking? Cooking!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IcyPanther](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcyPanther/gifts).



> This was unexpectedly less silly than I initially planned it to... oops. A commission from the lovely **IcyPanther** , who requested I write about how Shiro is hopeless in the kitchen. I was told to make it "humorous, angsty, or a little of both" so I took that last one and ran with it.
> 
> Set in Season 2, prior to the events of “Best Laid Plans”
> 
> Title from the [Super Junior-H song of the same name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1py8ykrd27A), which is about a guy who's girlfriend is also hopeless in the kitchen. And is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day XD

Shiro could admit that few things truly scared him. 

Sure, he wasn’t the biggest fan of snakes or spiders, but they didn’t frighten him. He found thunderstorms pleasant and soothing, and he never had a fear of heights (and what a poor career choice _that_ would have been, if he had). 

But two things, and only two, scared him down to his core. And he’d faced both in the span of mere hours. 

There was only so long he could spend waiting in the infirmary, silent save for the rapid clacking of Pidge’s fingers over her keyboard with the intermittent sniffle of stifled tears. Keith had stormed from the room long ago, only able to stomach Allura’s glares like he was personally responsible for the state of their Yellow and Blue Paladins for so long. Shiro sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. He really needed to speak to Allura about that. 

But lectures on misplaced distrust could wait. Now wasn’t the time—he’d only cause more turmoil and none of them needed that right now. What he needed was a distraction, he could selfishly admit. Anything to draw his mind away from the battered faces of two young boys he’d grown to care for as dearly as his little brothers. 

Anything to draw his thoughts away from the abject terror he’d felt when he thought he’d lost them both. 

Which is how he found himself facing down his second deep-seated fear in as many hours, standing in the kitchen of the Castle at an utter loss of where to proceed from there.

“Right,” he said aloud. He rolled his shoulders, the metal of his prosthetic creaking at the joints. “You’re their leader, Shirogane. You can do this. You can’t leave the responsibility of cooking up to Hunk all the time.” The alternative was food goo for every meal. He winced at the mere thought of it. No, Hunk and Lance deserved to come out of cryo with a good, hot meal waiting for them. 

He could _do_ this.

But where to start?

Utensils, he supposed, would be as good as place as any. He wasn’t sure what he could try making, so he pretty much emptied the entire contents of their cookware cupboard onto the island. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much—they’d collected over the months a couple of frying pans, a glass baking dish, a strangely spikey colander, a stockpot, and an array of cutlery to go with the bowls and spoons they found on the Castle. Allura and Coran needled them endlessly over their distaste of the goo, but relented nevertheless to their Paladins’ strange dietary habits.

He pondered over the pantry then, wondering what on Earth he could put together when half of the produce they had, he barely recognized. Belatedly, he wished he’d paid more attention when Hunk explained the dishes he made at mealtimes instead of single-mindedly devouring what was put in front of him. Another thing he’d have to work on.

Sighing again, he pulled out what he thought could maybe pass as an onion, things that looked like they might be beans of some variety, and an oddly shaped blue… tomato. Thing. Right. Those could all go into a pot together, right? 

But what to bind them all with… there was some milk from Kaltenecker in the cooler. That could work, he supposed. Or should he just use water…? And did they have any kind of meat to put in there? The boys would need all the iron they could get after losing so much blood…

He shook his head. Nope. He was not thinking about that right now. One fear at a time. 

Starting with the bean things, Shiro held the container up at eye level and regarded it with some level of skepticism. He was supposed to rinse them first, right? How much should he make to feed seven people? Shrugging, he dumped the whole container into the colander, mindful not to poke his flesh hand on the spikes. Then he dropped the colander into the sink and swiveled the faucet over top of them.

The first indication that maybe something wasn’t right was the fact that the beans immediately changed color the instant the water hit them. They turned from an ordinary pale beige to an almost inky black in a second. Shiro frowned. Did beans normally do that? Then the beans began to grow, slowly, like one of those dinosaur capsule pets he used to get as a kid. He turned the water off warily but still the beans grew. 

And grew.

And grew some more.

Shiro’s eyes widened as the beans continued to expand until they were overflowing out of the colander and into the sink. He cursed, scrambling to get the beans out of the sink and away from the water. By the time they stopped expanding, they’d grown to the size of gumballs and there were more beans in the sink and on the floor than remained in the colander. 

“Well… that failed spectacularly,” Shiro muttered. He poured what remained of the bean things into the stockpot and cleared out the others. Grumbling, he scooted the beans on the floor to one side with his foot and made a mental note to clean them up later. On to the next task.

Grabbing a knife, Shiro thought that surely he couldn’t go wrong dicing up some of the blue tomato. How hard could that be? 

Apparently very hard, when the knife wouldn’t puncture the skin. 

The first attempt, he brushed off. Maybe he was supposed to cut with the grain. So he rotated the tomato so it sat on its side and tried again. Still nothing. It was as though the skin of the stupid thing was made of rubber. Was it really fit for human consumption? He had his doubts as he rotated it a third time, still to no avail. 

A growl of frustration tore from his lips. This was so _stupid_. Why couldn’t he just do this simple thing? It was just cooking! Annoyed, he chucked the blasted thing across the room. It bounced like a tennis ball a couple of times before it rolled to a stop at the door.

Next to a pair of feet. 

Shiro’s eyes trailed from the blue tomato up the pair of legs to a set of crossed arms, and further up, until he realized it was Keith was standing in the doorway raising a concerned eyebrow at him. Keith’s eyes flickered from the blue tomato, to the knife in Shiro’s hands, to the mess of gumball-sized beans behind him.

“Are… you okay in here?” 

Shiro let his shoulders slump in defeat, and he set the knife down on the counter. He could lie and pretend everything was going fine, but Keith knew him better than that. He’d see right through it. 

“Not really, no. I just thought… I wanted to have dinner ready when, you know.” He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the door. 

Keith’s other eyebrow shot into his hairline. “You want some help?” 

Shiro tried not to look too relieved. “Please.” He sent a tentative smile Keith’s way, which Keith returned in kind. He bent down to pick up the tomato at his feet, blowing the dirt off it and giving it a brief inspection before he moved to stand beside Shiro. 

Keith hummed thoughtfully as he peered into the stockpot, and considered the tomato again. “Could you get the milk from the cooler? And one of those belzeber steaks in there.” Shiro nodded, gratefully letting Keith take the reins. 

By the time Shiro made it back from the cooler, Keith had pulled out at least six of the alien spices from Hunk’s spice rack and chopped up the onion thing, adding it to the beans. He couldn’t help but watch in awe as Keith handled the tomato, digging his thumbs into the stem and peeling back the rubbery outer layer before dicing that up, too. The knife flew across the cutting board with the same mastery Keith wielded a blade on the battlefield. Shiro let out a low whistle. 

“Where’d you learn to cook like that?” he asked. Keith paused in his chopping for only a second before he answered, not meeting Shiro’s eyes. 

“A year is a long time to live alone in the desert,” he said quietly. “I had to feed myself somehow.”

Silence hung between them. Shiro bit his lip in guilt; Keith rarely spoke of his time after Kerberos, much the same way Shiro rarely spoke of his. Before he could apologize for it, though, Keith looked up at him. 

“What about you?” 

“Huh?” 

Keith gazed pointedly at the beans still littering the floor. “Nothing. It’s just that you looked like trying to cook caused you physical pain just now.” He smirked, then, and just like that the tension eased between them. Shiro let out a sheepish laugh. 

“I don’t exactly have a stellar track record as far as my culinary skills go,” he replied. He kept his voice light, but the weight of his guilt still lurched unpleasantly in his stomach. He absently toyed with a frayed strand on his shirt, wondering if it was really all right to dump all this on Keith. When Keith kept up his expectant gaze, Shiro caved.

“I nearly killed my grandfather once. He got really, really sick. Salmonella from the undercooked chicken I served him. I learned the hard way it was best if I stayed far away from the kitchen.”

Keith’s hands stilled on the cutting board, the smirk all but melting from his face. “Shit, man.” 

Shiro cleared his throat. He turned his gaze away, finding the goo dispenser suddenly very interesting. “Yeah. So, it’s probably best that I screwed up. I’d probably give us all food poisoning. I don’t know what I was thinking, really.” 

They lapsed back into silence, albeit a much more comfortable one. Shiro could feel Keith staring at him for a long, deliberate moment before he set back to his task. Instead of lingering on those thoughts, Shiro pushed himself off the counter and moved to clean up the mess he made. 

“I could teach you, if you wanted.”

Shiro blinked, looking up at Keith from where he crouched down in front of the sink. Keith had put the lid on the stockpot and set the knife down, leaning against the countertop. His expression had softened out into a real smile, genuine and not at all teasing. 

“I don’t think Hunk would mind, either,” Keith continued. “He’s probably a better teacher than I am. But if he’s busy, I could show you a few things.” 

Shiro felt a smile growing on his face. He scooped a handful of beans off the floor and stood, glancing down at them before looking back up at Keith. “You sure you want to be offering that?” He held his hands out. 

Keith rolled his eyes and snorted. “As long as you’re the guinea pig for your own food.” Shiro laughed again, a full belly laugh, and soon after Keith joined him. 

“Deal.” He sidestepped past Keith and moved to the disposal chute, depositing the sullied beans as Keith stooped to grab a handful of his own. “Now let’s get this mess cleaned up. If Hunk sees we trashed his kitchen, _we’re_ going to need pods.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s this about _we_?” Keith said. He picked one of the beans from his hands and chucked it at Shiro, who only just dodged in time. “I distinctly recall the kitchen being a disaster _before_ I walked in here.” Shiro plucked another bean from the sink and tossed it in Keith’s direction. 

By the time he and Keith actually got the kitchen clean, Shiro felt his breath come a little easier, and his chest a little lighter. Keith’s promise hung in the back of his brain, and he couldn’t help but smile to himself. 

Maybe one day he could be down to just one fear, after all.


End file.
